The following message, a vision for church and family reformation, was given by Kevin Swanson and Scott Brown at the Regional Uniting Church and Family Conference in Wake Forest, North Carolina in 2008. Okay, well We're going to have a little fireside chat here. Hello, Kevin. Hey, Scott. Welcome.

So good to see you. So Kevin, what does the Gadarene demoniac and church reformation have to do with one another? Man. We got a reformer church that's acting like the Gadarene. So how many are familiar with the story of the Gadarene demoniac in the Gospels?

So there's a man cutting himself in the caves. He's demon-possessed. He's terrorizing the town. It's really bad. Everywhere he goes, there's terror.

And he receives the word of the Lord Jesus. And he is clothed and in its right mind, those two things. He's been reformed or at least begun to be reformed. His thinking and his life. His clothing, the way he presents himself in the world.

So the church should always be reforming, but the church also contains people who are also reforming. Gadarene demoniacs, people with baggage, people with all kinds of problems come into the church. And so the principle of Reformation is the fundamental principle of the church. We're always reforming. There never has been, never will be a time in history where the church is in need of Reformation.

This is not something new. This isn't the first era that the church ever needed Reformation. The church needed Reformation in every year of its existence. And so there have been gigantic waves of reformation in history. And what we'd like to do this afternoon is just talk through some of the areas of reformation.

In every era, there are particular areas that are needful of Reformation. All Reformation periods are not addressing all the exact same issues. Now there may be fundamental issues. You know for example, The Reformation that was conceived in the heart of Martin Luther was focused on the doctrine of justification by faith. With Calvin, a little bit later, it was the doctrine of the sovereignty of God.

Of course, there was overlap. In the Scottish Reformation, just after that period, the focus really was the doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture and all of the inventions that the Catholic Church had added on to church life. So you know, Reformations have their objects of Reformation. So, Kevin, let's talk a little bit about our view of the Reformations that are necessary today in the era that we live in. Well, we call our church Reformation Church, when it was started eight years ago, and we did that for two reasons.

One is we find some identification with the First Reformation. Secondly, we believe there ought to be another Reformation. So Semper Reformanda, there ought to always be reforming spirit in Christ's church. And so I think we have our roots to the First Reformation, yes. We have our roots in 2, 000 years of history.

In fact, as I train young men in the ministry, when I train elders, pastors, I want to make sure they understand church history all the way back to the beginning. So we're going to study Augustine, we're going to study Bede, We're going to study the development of the Irish church. We're going to study Anselm on into a campus and then the Reformers. We're going to be studying these guys and find out our roots and the sort of issues that these guys were working with back in the 300s and 400s. And I think we work it off of the antithesis, okay?

They would not have formulated the Nicaean and the Chalcedonian creeds without the antithesis coming forward and presenting some kind of a heretical approach to the nature of God and the Trinity. So you had the Arians, and after the Arians, you had Athanasius and others coming forward with their formulations, and eventually you have Nicaea and Chalcedon. So you have to have an antithesis first. What you get prior to the First Reformation is a humanistic influence in the church from the Renaissance, the recovery of the humanist thinking of Aristotle and Plato. I think it dates back into the formation of the universities in the 1100s and 1200s when universities took most of the major cities of Europe during those years, and they were all secular.

Aquinas had separated the idea of natural revelation from special revelation and said they weren't really dependent on each other. You don't need special revelation to do philosophy. You don't need special revelation to do certain things. And then they lost the concept of the sovereignty of God over all things, including salvation. So then you get the bondage of the will.

You get Calvin. You get these sorts of things. So you had a lot of humanistic influences creeping into the church. You had Michelangelo carving his statue of the man carving himself out of the rock. You remember that?

Man is self-defining. That's really the best exemplification of modern man. He's optimistic enough to think that he can define himself. Postmodern man wakes up and discovers, how can you carve yourself out of the rock and define yourself if you don't have hands? Right?

Somebody's got to make the hands first. So man can't define his reality, he can't define his truth and his ethics unless somebody gives him a clue, some absolute that he can get his hands onto. But modern man had denied any possibility for God being the absolute. So by the time you get to postmodern man, he's hopeless in his epistemology. So that's what happened.

Well it's the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, the humanist ways of thinking that conquered our world, our culture, and the church itself. I think the evangelical church is just as compromised today as the Catholic church in terms of its humanistic way of thinking about ethics, about metaphysics, about truth. I think the entire church is affected by this. So today our battle is to bring back the centrality of God in all areas of life. And Calvin would agree with us on most of what we're saying, But we'd probably have different incarnations.

You're right. We would want to bring a biblical way of educating children. For example, Calvin, the last great hurrah, the great thing he did was to launch another university in Geneva. And one of the first things the Puritans did when they come to America is to launch another humanist university and to make sure everybody knows Aristotle and Plato. So by the time you get to John Adams, all he's teaching his kids are Cicero and Aristotle and Plato and he forgets to teach them Calvin, Augustine, and all the Christian thinkers.

So by the time you get to the 1770s, 1780s, these kids had nothing, almost nothing but a humanist education in Harvard. And you don't get the idea that they were teaching a strong Trinitarian sovereignty of God, predestinating perspective of God that you would get in an Augustine or a more God-centered author. So right now, what we're saying is we need to get rid of the universities. We need to completely reform the way we do education. So I think we're going further than the first Reformers did.

Right, reforming education. So what we're talking about has to do with what does Scripture say about education, who does it, what is taught, and what's the delivery system of education. What does the Bible say about that? And method is just as important as content. Yeah, method is just as important as content.

And so, for example, what we want to do is take what Scripture says explicitly about education and then match it up with what's happening. So for example, one of the things that we would say, we've said many times, is that we believe that the age-segregated method for education is a weed in the church. It's a humanistic pagan idea that, you know, that probably started a lot longer ago than Plato, but we definitely see it with Plato and Rousseau and then the educational reformers of the 18th and the 19th and the 20th centuries. So one of the things that we would say is, look at what the Bible says about education. It's driven by the fathers.

It is the training and the admonition of the Lord. It's walk-along, talk-along, discipleship. It's not this talking head oriented university system. And so one of the problems with reforming our thinking and our living is that that philosophy has so worked its way into everything in the church that if you try to pull that weed up a lot comes up with it. That's a problem.

So if it is, so if age-segregated discipleship is a weed, and I would just like to present this thought to you, is it, do you think it's a weed? I think it is a weed that has grown up into the church and its runners have worked their way into the fabric of our thinking and our doing in terms of education of the church, the education of our children, and our conception of what is a proper education. Kevin, how do you respond to this idea of age segregation as a weed? It seems to be an incarnation of a system that's bad, so you start yanking on it. It's going to affect all these different areas.

The minute you say you ought to consider discipling your children in your home as you walk by the ways you rise up as you lie down, and fathers, you're responsible, then it seems like what happens is fathers begin to see that the whole way they viewed education, discipleship, the nurture of children in a spiritual sense, economics, all these other areas, even politics, are affected. So it's, yeah, it does seem like we've got a systemic problem. And eventually people wake up and say, our system was bad. Not only was this one little area of age segregation an issue in the church and in education and all these other areas, but it seems to unravel these other things That we've got basically a loss of relationships. We've got a loss of the notion of discipleship in the church.

We've got a loss of the idea that families are to be involved in economics. In fact, the word economics comes from oikonomia, which is oikos is household, family, and nomia is law. So economics is the law or the vision of the family. The basic economic unit has always been the family, not the individual. It's been the individual since Mars, where the individual feels like they are their own economic unit and they plug into a corporation or a state.

But we see the family as integrated together in an economic vision. And that drives a lot of things. That will drive the way you raise your daughters and your sons. That will drive the way you do your courtships, the marriages, and things that come out of your homes. So this is an all-encompassing Reformation movement that's going to reach into all areas of life.

And I think it's because we have gone back to the Word of God. We have finally said, okay, we have ruined our families, we're ruining our economics, we're ruining our politics, we're building the greatest tyrannies the world has ever known, maybe we ought to crack the Word of God. Maybe God had something to say about these things. And that's what I do in my book, The Second Mayflower. It's just cracking the word of God and saying, okay, what does God have to say about all areas of life?

And let's rebuild a Christian society, a Christian culture based upon the principles of God's word. So Kevin, in this book, you quote Deuteronomy 28, 1 and 2, which in verse 2 we read, And if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God blessed shall thou be in the city and blessed shall thou be in the field what a wonderful thing that's that's that reminds I mean well it just takes me right back to the Gadarene demoniac. We're clothed and we're in our right minds in the cities and the fields that God has planted us in. And you know, brother, a lot of us just turn to Deuteronomy 6.7, we found a principle. God says, teach your children My Word, My truth, as you sit in your house in relationship.

We say to ourselves, wow, truth, In relationship, neat concept, let's call it discipleship. And let's try it with our kids for 18 years and see what happens. It was a wonderful reforming incarnation for a postmodern age that had lost the notion of absolute truth, God's Word, and relationships. So that I think is why the homeschooling movement is probably well represented here today. It's just my guess from talking to some of you.

You wonder why these ideas aren't being received in other audiences. Anybody ever wonder that? You ever wonder that, Scott? I know why. Why?

Well, because the homeschool movement understands what the Bible says about education, that it should happen in a relational method, and it stands in sharp contrast to a pagan education. And, you know, we have a group of people in America who don't believe it's lawful for Christians to send their children to be educated by pagans. So where did they get that? Somebody out there saying, yeah, but 5% of children make it through. 5% of children who get tossed in their shark cages survive.

You've heard that before, haven't you? What do you tell them? What do you tell them when they say, five percent? Come on, come on. I went through it and look at me.

I did pretty good. You know what Vody Baucom said to that in Grand Junction? No you didn't. No you didn't. Right.

He got in trouble in Grand Junction for saying that. One of our friends likes to say, when somebody says, well look at me, I came out okay. He says, well that's evidence that you didn't turn out okay that's the way you think about yourself but you know the the heart of our message is what does the Bible say about education and if you answer that question with Scripture all of life is transformed every hour of your life is tampered with every every aspect of your church life is affected and this is this is why this is such a controversial proposition, is because when you do pull out that one weed, a lot comes with it. Almost everything comes with it for some reason. But the heart of it really is the principle of the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture, that Scripture is all we need, that we should take what Scripture has said, believe it, and do with all of our hearts to carry it out.

Of course we'll never be able to carry it out completely. Of course we're lawbreakers to the core. We've not only broken one point of the law, but because of it we've broken all the law. This has nothing to do with personal righteousness. It has nothing to do with being better than anyone else, but what it does have to do with this call of God to obey all of what he has said.

We've been memorizing this this text of Scripture Deuteronomy 5 29. Oh that they had such a heart in them that they might fear me and always keep all my commandments." And then there's a promise after it. And you know, in that sense, we are in a reformation. We are in a reformation of family and church life today. And our prayer is that there would be a great awakening in this area, that all of life, and particularly education, will be transformed.

Scott, I think God is doing something with this nation. I don't think God has done with us yet. That's why I wrote the book The Second Mayflower. The Reformation movement we're seeing in this nation today, and it is happening, as you mentioned. There are some great signs.

I've traveled the country myself and seen hundreds of thousands of fathers that are waking up. And I think that God is doing a significant work here. And the reason is because America is the major inheritor of the First Reformation. They came here in the 1600s and the 1700s. They came here from Scotland.

They came here from France, the French Huguenots. The Dutch came here and settled New York. The Puritans and Pilgrims came. The Scottish Covenaners in the 1700s were persecuted out of Scotland. This nation brought the very, very, very best of the 16th century Reformation right here.

And if there will be hope for the salvaging of Christianity, of the Christian faith, the freedom of the principles that we have learned and that we have experienced and we have been blessed with here in this country. It will happen here. And it's going to happen, I think, with the people represented in this movement, Scott, the people that find some kind of connection to their forefathers, the Pilgrims and the Puritans and the 16th century reformers. I know Doug's doing a 500-year anniversary on John Calvin's anniversary birthday next year. But we are the ones that will be founding this second Mayflower, which I really think will bring back a reforming influence in the Western world.

I'm not sure what's going to happen with Europe, But America has some chance for salvaging. And within homeschooling, if you just look at homeschooling, homeschoolers are having children. While the birth rate is what, 1.7 or what have you among evangelicals and most everywhere in America, homeschoolers, the birth rate is 3.49 right now. Among home schooling families, we're looking at 2.5 million home schoolers in America. Birth rate, 3.5.

Now while 70 to 80% of average ordinary kids are walking away from the faith, from their evangelical homes, Dr. Brian Ray found 90% of home schoolers are planning to perpetuate their parents' vision to homeschool their own kids. So again, in terms of do we agree with what our parents were doing, 90% of home schoolers are saying yeah we're going to go for it. So that's Pretty good. And I'm guessing they're going to have more kids.

So I did an analysis to figure out how many home schoolers there would be in the year 2017. We're going to see one more increase. By the year 2027, with the second generation, if we flatline on 2.5 million right now, we will have 6 million home educated students in 2027. By the time I'm ready to kick the bucket at 2050, we will have 15 million homeschoolers here in America in 2050. Now I stand right now about halfway through my life.

And I have lived through 40 years of the developing homeschool movement. We've got 40 to go, or 45 or so to go in my life. So by the time I'm done, we'll have three generations of homeschoolers, 15 million of us. And we may be at the point where the Puritans were in the 1620s and 1630s and 1640s and developed, of course, the revolution under Oliver Cromwell and also planted this country during that period of time. So right now, We are effectively where the Puritans were somewhere around 1590.

Give us another 40 years or so and we'll have enough numbers and hopefully a quality of vision where we could, I think, establish a free nation of some sort. And it's happening at the same time we're seeing an unraveling of our economic systems, our political systems, our religious systems. We are seeing massive, massive, massive cultural changes, guys. And God at the same time is busy. God is working as he was during the time of the Reformation.

And I think God is going to leave this country with something very special in 40 to 50 years from now at the end. But right now it's for us to take this very precious work that God has done in the home discipleship movement across America and continue to nurture it, continue to build good churches out of it, develop more of a vision out of it, try to work on the post K-12 school vision. Let's continue to work on eliminating universities and replacing it by mentorships and more discipleship oriented preparation for life for our sons and for our daughters. Let's get creative. Let's continue to nurture the vision.

And that I believe is the responsibility of the men, the fathers, the leaders, the moms and dads that lead this movement. We've got to nurture what we've got. We've got something very, very good here, very good. Let's do what we can with it. And by the time you and I are just about done, ready to hand it off to our great grandkids, hopefully we'll have something very, very beautiful, something not unlike our Puritan and Pilgrim forefathers that founded this nation 400 years ago.

You know, it takes me back to the Protestant Reformation, particularly when biblical worship was outlawed. And churches were planted all over Europe, little churches. They called them conventicals. And they were, you know, small groups of people who met in fields and they met in caves and things like that because they're illegal. And then about 20 years, After about 20 years these churches had grown a little bit and they started calling them privy kirks.

And then another 20 years, then they became parish churches. Right now there's a lot of church planting going on all over the nation. I spent part of my year this year traveling around and meeting in regions just trying to gather together elders and deacons and just find out what was going on. Here's what I found out. Well still lots of churches are being planted but the churches that were planted three, four, five years ago, whereas they really struggled along for a couple, three years, now they're becoming more substantial.

They have more leaders than they ever had. And we like things to happen overnight, But God has a longer view in mind. And, you know, of the 675 churches that are, that identify with the National Center for Family Integrated Churches in some way, of those 675, I wonder what the picture will look like in five years or ten years as they continue to develop, as they continue to learn how to govern their church. Especially with our sons. There you go, right.

Take over. They stand on our shoulders. They know so much more than we did because we didn't know anything when we started. So again, let me tell you something. What's going to happen in the second generation, third generation?

So here's one of the most exciting things about these leadership meetings that we had is every one of them that I went to, fathers are bringing their sons to teach their sons how to be elders and deacons. There they are, 14, 15, 16 years of age just sitting there with us. That didn't happen 20 years ago. It really did. It's happening now.

Again, it's another sign of a switch that God is flipping in the hearts of men. He's turning their hearts to their sons, and those men are saying to their sons, follow me. Is God doing something here, folks? What do you think? Anybody think God's at work?

God is alive and well on planet earth, right? Somebody needs to write that book. There you go. The sequel to the other one. Okay, so one last comment from you.

Why did you choose the name Second Mayflower for this book? You know, I wrote the book in 1994. It was 13, 14 years ago. And I gave the name The Second Mayflower, and as I brought out the hardback edition, the third edition this year, I was going to do a new name for the book. So I sat and worked through about 20, 25 different name ideas and then settled back on the second Mayflower because that's really what it's about, Scott.

I really believe that God has placed something, at least in my heart, and I know many, many others who respect the heritage of those who went before us. We cannot be a Reformation movement guys that cut our ties from the previous generation, those that went before us, those who had reforming zeal, those who had an agenda that was right. Now I think we're standing on their shoulders and we can see more fundamentally the antithesis that was taking apart the western world. So our Reformation is going to be more thorough, more fundamental, more full-orbed. It's going to affect all areas of life, but we are going to effectively start with the same vision that they had.

It's my real vision that Second Mayflower come about that we have a country somewhere in the world that reflects the principles of freedom and righteousness that this nation represented for several hundred years of its history. Granted, we're losing it. I have a chapter in the book that talks about how we're losing our liberties, we're losing our freedoms. Government tyranny is growing significantly, but I think that the vision is key in the hearts of a minority. And of course, God never changes things with the 51 percent.

God brings it about with Gideon's 300, and that's what he's doing right now, I believe, in this country. Amen.